Between the Covers

Between the Covers


Latest Episodes

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore : Sketchtasy
February 12, 2019

“Sycamore paints an unsparing and unsentimental portrait of survival in a homophobic era, and her writing is beyond beautiful. Sketchtasy is a powerful firecracker of a novel; it’s not just one of the best books of the year, it’s an … Continue reading →

Alicia Jo Rabins : Fruit Geode
February 01, 2019

“How does a body do what it does: make love, mistakes, create life, exist after life; how does a body evolve, celebrate, regret, reconsider its big and small moments: these are the passionate concerns of Alicia Rabins’ Fruit Geode, a … Continue reading →

Genevieve Hudson: Pretend We Live Here
January 13, 2019

“A terrific collection of stories. There are echoes here of Flannery O’Connor, Barry Hannah, and Denis Johnson, but Genevieve Hudson is her own writer—impressively and gloriously so. Her eye for the clinching detail is unnerving and her sympathies are ...

Jeffrey Yang : Hey Marfa
January 01, 2019

“Yang rebuilds for the reader a town that is notable for its many stark contrasts: restored & ruined buildings, wealth & poverty, international art & border enforcement. Hey, Marfa makes a remarkable poetic accounting of the ways imagination is current...

Chaya Bhuvaneswar : White Dancing Elephants
December 17, 2018

“Bhuvaneswar is unflinching about the lives of those for whom identity is a constant battle & the act of being is an unavoidable challenge, but she doesn’t ignore the beauty in their strength…White Dancing Elephants is a necessary book — … Continue rea...

Layli Long Soldier : Whereas
December 01, 2018

“Long Soldier reminds readers of their physical and linguistic bodies as they are returned to language through their mouths and eyes and tongues across the fields of her poems.”—Natalie Diaz for The New York Times Book Review;  “Layli Long Soldier’s … ...

Diane Williams: The Collected Stories of Diane Williams
November 13, 2018

“Williams’s short precise, & emphatic sentences build a strange society whose denizens are not quite familiar to us & not quite comfortable with their own quietly disturbing evolutions. Not a single moment of the prose here is what you expect,

R.O. Kwon : The Incendiaries
November 01, 2018

“Every explosive requires a fuse. That’s R. O. Kwon’s novel, a straight, slow-burning fuse. To read her novel is to follow an inexorable flame coming closer & closer to the object it will detonate—the characters, the crime, the story, &,

Tommy Pico : Junk
October 14, 2018

“Reading Tommy Pico’s Junk I kept thinking of Heather McHugh’s pronouncement that the main discipline of poetry is “to keep finding life strange.” Pico is the master of making the stone stony, or returning the sheer absurdity of being to … Continue rea...

Dubravka Ugrešić : Fox & American Fictionary
October 01, 2018

Dubravka Ugrešić is considered one of Europe’s most distinctive novelists and essayists.  She is the 2016 winner of Neustadt International Prize for Literature for her body of work, joining literary luminaries from Gabriel Garcia Marquez to Elizabeth B...